


A Series of Discoveries

by genarti



Category: Sorcerer Royal Series - Zen Cho, Sorcerer to the Crown - Zen Cho
Genre: Backstory, Canon Era, Dandies, M/M, Meet-Cute, Pre-Canon, dandies ambling about town judging your fashion, one's a magician one's a dragon both are dorks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-17
Updated: 2019-12-17
Packaged: 2021-02-25 04:48:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21830254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/genarti/pseuds/genarti
Summary: The idea came to him like a bolt of lightning. (Rollo had personal experience with being struck by lightning, so he was confident in his simile. The weather in Fairyland is not only chancy but tends to the dramatic, and dragons are, in addition to being accustomed to fly through clouds in all weathers, more than usually conductive. Fortunately, they are also extremely difficult to damage.)Living with his family was simply intolerable. Very well; so why not live somewhere else? Why not live somewhere quite distant from all his family? Why not, in fact, leave Fairyland altogether?
Relationships: Paget Damerell/Robert "Rollo" Threlfall
Comments: 18
Kudos: 61
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	A Series of Discoveries

**Author's Note:**

  * For [valmora](https://archiveofourown.org/users/valmora/gifts).



In a corner of the sprawling gardens of the Threlfall estate in Fairyland lay a labyrinth of bone-thorn topiary. Labyrinths are somewhat pointless to dragons, since all but the very youngest can fly, but such logistical considerations have very little weight when battling fashion. Labyrinths were fashionable in that year; therefore, the Threlfalls had a large and fine one.

In the very heart of it lay a gleaming golden dragon, sulking.

Robert Henry Algernon Threlfall, known to all as Rollo, was in a foul mood. His brother Barty had been intolerable at breakfast. His least favourite uncle had scolded him for chewing too loudly, and then for listing to the left when he flew, and then for listing to the right when he tried to comply, and then both he and two of Rollo's many aunts had joined together to advise him on all of the faults in his flying technique, most of which faults they possessed themselves in greater measure. Barty had spent the whole time sniggering. And to cap off the miserable morning, luncheon had featured stewed imp, a horrible-tasting muck that his worst aunt of all, Aunt Georgiana, loved dearly, and she had insisted upon pressing it on everyone so that she could feel smugly generous. She had spent the rest of the meal expounding upon her many and strongly held opinions on the youth of today, while those youth were neither expected nor allowed to argue. Rollo had fled as soon as the pudding was removed.

The idea came to him like a bolt of lightning. (Rollo had personal experience with being struck by lightning, so he was confident in his simile. The weather in Fairyland is not only chancy but tends to the dramatic, and dragons are, in addition to being accustomed to fly through clouds in all weathers, more than usually conductive. Fortunately, they are also extremely difficult to damage.)

Living with his family was simply intolerable. Very well; so why not live somewhere else? Why not live somewhere quite distant from all his family? Why not, in fact, leave Fairyland altogether?

Most of his relations—Barty, certainly—might have roared at this juncture something along the lines of, "That will show them all!" An innocent bush or two would likely have been set alight as punctuation. However, while Rollo had never been accused of genius nor even particular intelligence, he did have a rather un-Threlfall-ish sense of perspective. He knew perfectly well it would not show them all. He would not have wanted it to. What he hoped was that it would show no one anything; that his family would, in fact, forget all about him, and he would be allowed to go about his business as he pleased, without anyone scolding him about family duty or trying to devour him.

This glorious prospect decided him. With a heroic effort he stifled the pang that stabbed through him at the thought of abandoning his prize collection of watch fobs; now was not the time to return to the family caves. With a defiant hiss directed at no one who was there to hear it, he launched himself skywards.

* * *

Human scholars have calculated the number of doors to Fairyland as anywhere between 58 and 437, including any number of figures in between. Rollo had no idea that mortals had decided to embroil themselves in such tediousness. (Nor had he any idea about the vicious fights launched through footnotes and the occasional round of fisticuffs over the correct answer, but that part would not have surprised him; life among dragons gives one great insight into the mind of a certain type of comfortably funded gentleman scholar.) If asked, Rollo could not have counted above ten doors. But he had no need to, for he understood the real truth of the matter, as it was relevant to his life. 

That truth was: a door can form just about anywhere, if a determined dragon has decided that it ought to do so.

Rollo was determined, and he intended to make use of that. He had decided not to make his way to any of the eight or so major doorways in easy range, lest his family find him immediately. Instead, he planned to slip between the worlds at some obscure point where the veil separating them had briefly thinned, as it is often wont to do, and be through with the veil closed up behind him before anyone noticed that a door had been forced briefly ajar. Ideally, this would be near some major mortal city. Rollo's knowledge of the mortal world was extremely hazy, as he had not been an especially diligent student and had never before seen especial reason to take an interest in the subject, but he had an idea that flying over great distances in order to get somewhere amusing might be somewhat conspicuous.

"And they think I'm not bright!" he muttered to himself as he flew, quite swelling with self-satisfaction. "Well, perhaps I'm not, but I can put together quite a clever idea now and then, if I do say so myself!"

He had flown quite a distance south -- though whether the cardinal directions have any consistent meaning in Fairyland is a matter of great debate among fairy and mortal scholars alike -- by the time he felt what he had been searching for. A rippling sort of instability in the air below him, quite close to the ground, and beyond it the press of a vast crowd of unfamiliar lives. With a restrained teakettle hiss of triumph -- for he would have quite liked to roar, but was still rather wary of his Aunt Georgiana somehow leaping out from behind a cloud if he made any great noise -- he swooped down, digging both foreclaws deep into the stuff of magic before him.

It resisted, then tore. A tidy, dragon-sized hole opened before him on a view of green plants, well-trimmed grass, marble statuary, and occasional brightly coloured human shapes strolling about. Rollo plunged gleefully through.

The next few moments featured a loud crash, a veritable rain of leaves and twigs, and a great deal of startled human shrieking. Rollo had neglected to account for the distorting effect that portals sometimes produce; he ploughed directly into a venerable and extremely unfortunate elm tree.

Behind him, with a sound like a champagne cork popping out, the portal sealed itself shut.

* * *

Rollo opened his eyes cautiously when the hail of small tree bits onto his nose seemed to have ceased. After a few moments to blink away some stray elm leaves, he found himself staring directly at a human child. It had a finger in its mouth.

"You're a dragon," it informed him.

"Obviously." English was not Rollo's best language (for, truth be told, languages in general were not his strongest suit) and the word felt clumsy in his mouth, and came out with more than a little extraneous hissing. He got twigs in his mouth as well. Not very nourishing for a dragon, but in a burst of petulant vengeance against the tree, he swallowed them.

He was not to know what other pearls of wisdom the child might have dropped upon him, for a young man came rushing up. At any rate, Rollo was fairly sure it was a man; he recalled that British women not only wore ringlets and jewellery similar to those of fairy women, but also did their best to avoid showing any sign of having legs, and this human had quite fine examples of human legs, encased in tight breeches and stockings to very visible effect.

"Thank you, everyone, you can go about your day!" he was calling out. "A little magical experiment, quite in order, no need for concern. --All right, little lad, off you go." This last was to the child, with a brisk shooing gesture. "This is magicians' business."

The child did not seem inclined to be shooed. It stared mulishly upwards. "'m going to be a magician. 'm going to be a _sorcerer_. My father's a magician and a _Midsomer_ and he's more important than you."

"Oh, Lord! Of course he is." This was said in a mutter, but the child clearly heard, for its smug look increased. Rollo felt an unaccountable dislike for it, though his impression from dealing with the offspring of his neighbours and relations was that all children were periodically insufferable, even the ones who grew up to be rather reasonable (very few of whom were related to him). "Well, very likely he is more important than I am. I'm quite sure he is. But you, my lad, are a child, and it will be some years yet before you can elbow your way into someone else's dealings with a dragon. Off you go, before your nurse decides you've been devoured."

The child stomped and sulked all the way down the hill, which was almost endearingly ineffectual with such tiny legs, but it did indeed leave. The young man, who had been keeping a sensibly wary eye on Rollo throughout, turned his full attention to him as soon as it was clear that the child had been successfully shooed.

"I am not magicians' business," Rollo informed him immediately, in his crispest English. He had a nagging suspicion it was not especially crisp. "Nor dragons' business. I am here on my own business and I shall go about it shortly."

"Of course," agreed the young man, easily. Rollo was glad he didn't say anything about the tree. Of course, any dragon worth its salt could free itself from even a much larger tangle of mortal plant debris, but the process might not always be _entirely_ dignified, and more to the point he did not wish to be reminded of the fact that it was necessary. "But if you'll forgive me for contradicting you on just one minor point, my dear sir, an unannounced dragon in a tea garden _is_ rather magicians' business, you know. If only to make sure of the fact that you're not our business, if you follow me. I'm glad to hear you know what you're about, but if you don't mind, I should rather like to hear more of what that is. For example, if you were here to eat someone, I might be obliged to do my best to stop you, depending of course on who it might be. Or if you had come to attack the King or Parliament or any such thing, I'm afraid there would have to be some unpleasantness."

"Oh, no!" Rollo exclaimed, after he had worked his way through this speech. The fellow had a pleasant voice and an appealingly casual way of speaking, but it had been a very long while since his last English lesson. "I suppose I might eat someone if they really deserved it. But I have no intention of _politics_." He shuddered, causing a brief hail of leaves and twigs. "That is more Aunt Georgiana's..." He realized he had no idea how to say _lookout_ in English, and rephrased: "She likes politics. She would come over and scold me on my technique and then we should all regret it."

"You fascinate me," said the young man.

Rollo had rarely been told he fascinated anyone, at home. He was mostly told that he ought to try to kill his siblings more and stop listing to the left when he flew, and that he should spend less time tying his cravat. (This human had an exquisitely knotted cravat.) He flushed in pleasure, emitting a small coil of smoke. The unexpected show of interest, from a being most refreshingly unlike everyone he had fled, was delightful enough that it even prevented him from dwelling on the sudden realization that his own cravat was buried in leaves and undoubtedly entirely disarrayed. "I don't even know your king. Very rude to attack a fellow you don't know! But if I did I wouldn't want to. Then Aunt Georgiana would come. Make a dreadful lot of noise and -- and bother. And then I should have to go home with her."

The young man had listened to this with flatteringly evident interest. "Could it be -- and I beg your pardon, of course, if I am wrong -- but is your business, perhaps, to avoid your Aunt Georgiana?"

Rollo sagged slightly further onto the ground. "Precisely. No, that's not true. It's to avoid all of my relations. All dreadful! You can't imagine."

There was a thoughtful silence. It was punctuated by a distant yelling; two elderly men had come into view, seen a golden dragon half-obscured by leaves beneath a sadly bedraggled elm that had been a fine tree that morning, and evidently decided that they had elsewhere to be in great haste.

"Well, that certainly seems a very reasonable business to be about. I can see no objection. But you know, my dear fellow, if you wish to discuss the matter at more leisure in a more comfortable location, I should be happy to escort you to my lodgings."

Rollo reflected on that. It was true that the branches digging into his back were more than a little irritating, and so were the occasional yells and shrieks in the background. But on the other hand... "I am not on business to be any human's familiar," he warned. "Not intending to serve in any court."

He would have mistrusted a smooth denial, but the human seemed genuinely startled. "Of course not! I would not expect either on five minutes' acquaintance. You have my word that I only intend conversation. You are and shall be free to leave whenever you wish."

"Well! I will come, then." A thought struck him, and he added, "I am Rollo. Robert Henry Algernon," and he finished with the loud roar of his final name, "of the Threlfalls of Threlfall, but nobody calls me Robert. Only my grandfather." His least favourite grandfather, primarily for the reason that his other two had died many years before, and thus receded into a pleasantly distant memory of long-ago scoldings for his shameful lack of bloodthirstiness.

"Rollo it is." The young man, unencumbered by elm trees, bowed gracefully. "Paget Damerell, at your service."

Rollo had been hoping for an ordinary name, Aloysius or Smithwick or Heart-of-Blood. Still, a dragon was valiant; a dragon did not quail before a challenge. "Pag—" he began, and then his tongue tangled ignominiously around the rest. The difficulty was not so much the syllables themselves as remembering their unfamiliar order. "Poggs?" he attempted, gamely.

Paget Damerell's lips twitched. Suppressed amusement, Rollo discovered, was quite a charming expression on a human face. (It was rather less so on many of the more human-faced fairies he had met, though that was perhaps because of the things that tended to amuse some of his aunts' and cousins' friends.) "Near enough. Certainly; let us be Rollo and Poggs."

"You are an excellent fellow," Rollo cried. He would have expanded upon that, but he was not feeling quite up to such complex pleasantries in English. "Where are your... lodgings?" (He hoped he had remembered that word correctly.) "Are they near or do you fly?" Humans generally did not, he knew, but magicians had a greater ability to do sensible things.

"Quite near. I walk, as a rule. Flying seems rather profligate for the distance, and also for the rooftops." He cleared his throat. "However, I don't suppose you would be willing to assume another form? Human, for instance. Only dragons are very rarely seen in London, you know, and you would be rather conspicuous."

"Oh! Of course. Yes, certainly." Feeling rather proud, for shapeshifting was one of the skills in which he actually _had_ excelled in his lessons, Rollo shook himself hard to dislodge the worst of the tree bits, and then reached into his internal store of magic (for the mortal world really was dreadfully thinly supplied with it) and changed. He had worked hard on this mortal form, and he was quite pleased with it: the golden hair was not only the same shade as his scales, but curled around his shoulders in thick and shining waves. Furthermore, over several determined weeks some years ago, he had perfected the trick of retaining his cravat, and he was confident that every fold remained just as perfect as it had been that morning despite the process of shrinking from dragon neck to human.

His new friend seemed momentarily transfixed. Probably, Rollo thought, he was admiring Rollo's skill.

Then he coughed. "Well done," he said. "Er... It _is_ generally the custom for humans to wear clothing, however. In addition to cravats."

"Oh." Rollo had forgotten that detail. "Is that an important custom?"

"Very much so, I'm afraid." Poggs coughed again. "Perhaps an illusion, if you would allow me...?"

* * *

"Poggs!" Rollo burst through the door of the lodgings. He had been staying him them for a week now, and finding it most congenial, though he still reverted to a smaller version of his dragon form to sleep curled up around the breakfast table rather than upon a sopha or spare mattress. Poggs had never complained, merely suggested to the landlady that she might leave breakfast upon the sideboard instead of the table when she brought it up in the mornings.

Now, Poggs looked up from whatever bit of cleverness he'd been working on at his desk. "Yes?"

"Poggs, did you know about horses?"

There was a pause, during which Poggs' eyebrows rose slowly.

"I have heard of them," he owned. "Do you mean any feature of them in particular?"

"I didn't know mortals were so clever! Always found them a disappointing dinner myself, horses I mean, but I never would have thought of _racing_ them! Or getting them to pull those little bouncy cart things. I suppose it comes of having such small bodies and so little magic for impulsion spells. But it's a bang-on notion!"

"Bang-up, my dear." Poggs set his pen aside. "Do you mean to say you've been down at the tracks?"

"Yes, at -- oh, it's one of your long names. Enfield Pinny or some such. Don't tell me you know how to do that, Poggs!" 

"I'm no jockey, certainly. It's not exactly the thing, is it now? But I do drive, of course. My funds do not quite stretch to keeping a phaeton and pair in Town, but I daresay I could show you how to handle a rented pair, if you like. A gentleman ought to know his way around the ribbons no matter what manner of creature he is."

"Oh! What a good fellow you are!" In an excess of delight, Rollo flung himself across the room. He had intended to twine tails with Poggs, but remembered halfway there that neither he nor Poggs was in a form conducive to such displays of affection, and moreover that he had no idea what the human equivalent might be. Out of a vague feeling that Englishmen liked to clasp each other's hands, he wrung Poggs' hands enthusiastically. From Poggs' expression, he thought perhaps he had not guessed quite right, but Poggs seemed to find it endearing nonetheless.

* * *

"What do you think of that fellow there? The one with the _oreille d'ours_ coat."

Rollo scanned the cluster of young bucks obediently. With his usual foresight, Poggs had chosen them an excellent hill from which to watch the various mortals promenading under the carefully groomed rows of trees and shrubbery. Not only did the hill have a good view, but it had a sturdy old oak tree to lean against whilst sharing a bottle of claret after a picnic luncheon. London's tea gardens, he had discovered, were a great deal more pleasant in human form.

Upon spotting the buck in question, Rollo could not restrain a wince. "His cravat's a disgrace! Never saw a Mathematical tied so unmathematically. Ought not to powder his hair so heavily, either. Even worse than powdered scales. M'uncle used to powder his scales until he turned his wings half white."

For some reason, this opinion made Poggs convulse with silent laughter. "No," he agreed when he had recovered somewhat, "he's liable to bring a fog upon the landscape the moment he turns his head too fast. But my dear, I know your understanding of neckcloths is unimpeachable. Lyttelton fairly choked himself with envy at your Waterfall at dinner on Wednesday. Clearly your understanding of hair-powder is likewise. But do tell me what you think of his coat. I am agog to hear."

"Why, it's of a piece, ain't it? Tries for the dandy, lands in pure macaroni. The lapels ain't bad, but the colour's all wrong for him, and the cut of the top don't match the bottom."

Poggs gave him a sly sideways smile over his claret cup. It sank into Rollo's bones like sunlight. "I quite agree. It's a daring cut, and he can't shine half enough to live up to it. Look, his left stocking's all wrinkles."

"Making a mull of it," Rollo supplied sagely. He had learned the expression yesterday, and was rather enamoured of it. 

"Well, he's young yet. Perhaps he'll sort himself out in time, and curb those Icarus tendencies. But for now he's doing it far too brown."

"What do you say for the one next to him? That fellow in the blue. Not half bad, Poggs, is he? Despite the boots."

"A very great 'despite,' my dear fellow. No, you're right—his waistcoat is quite astonishingly tolerable."

"What of the women talking to them? I don't know about all those skirts and things. The bonnets and curls, certainly, and I know shawls well enough except that none of 'em have wings to account for. What am I supposed to make of all those frocks?"

Rollo wriggled his shoulderblades more comfortably back against the oak, enjoying the way its scratchy bark felt different against skin through wool and linen than it would have against scales, and settled in to listen to the answer.

The afternoon had only one minor lack at all, and that was that Rollo could very much have wished for the Threlfall cook's custard tarts. He had not had any dessert but fruit and cheese and honey for nearly three weeks, for Poggs did not eat sugar at the moment. He had explained the matter to Rollo; it seemed that some humans were treating others in a manner that the Queen of Fairy Within in her worst temper might have found laudably cruel, for some unfathomable tangle of reasons, none of which seemed sufficient for such a very thorough grudge, if grudge it even was. He had a vague sense there were even more complications to it, as indeed there seemed to always be in human society, but Poggs' explanation had only clarified so much. In some confusing way, all of this meant that sugar was produced by these much-abused folk and that ought to be stopped. 

Eschewing sugar was apparently a way of making a statement to the government about it. Personally, Rollo felt that avoiding stating anything to one's ruler seemed a sensible survival strategy, but that if one were determined to do so, this was a bewilderingly indirect method; however, it had rapidly become clear to him that mortal politics were a labyrinthine tangle. He was not at all certain what sort of things mortals even expected each other to make public statements about, let alone the usual ways of doing so. At any rate, it meant that he was doomed to pine for custard tarts without hope of satisfaction. 

But to get such a first-rate education on coats and boots and waistcoats, delivered along with claret and sunshine and that smile of Poggs' -- and no relations anywhere in a hundred miles -- well, that was worth any amount of custard, and a good deal more besides.

* * *

Poggs' lodgings had been a delightful place to stay, on the whole, but Rollo had become vaguely conscious that perhaps a month was long enough to sleep under someone else's breakfast table. It was long enough for him to grow tired of bumping his chin against the chairs, as well, and to wish for his own armoire to accommodate his growing wardrobe. (A dragon's scale, it seemed, fetched enough in London to keep a gentleman in style for quite some time, which was extremely convenient for a gentleman who periodically found a shed one when making his toilette.) Accordingly, two weeks earlier, he had moved out to his own set of rooms. Poggs had helped him find it. It was only a short walk away, and best of all was cleaned by the same charwoman, so Rollo did not have to make more explanations lest she find him in scales.

For an hour or so, he had been delighted. Then the loneliness had set in. At Poggs' lodgings, he had had the blessed quiet of no relations bothering him, and after the first few days he had often enough had the place to himself while Poggs went about on magician business, at least when Rollo himself was not out on his own business of discovering the mortal world. It was something else again to know that no amiable human would be coming home with a stack of impenetrably scholarly books and an ironical comment.

Rollo had begun to collect his own circle of the young humans Poggs had introduced him to; Poggs called them fribbles, without scorn, but to Rollo a set of fellows who enjoyed horseflesh and good tailoring and games of chance were precisely the ticket, and all the better if they unaccountably laughed and called him a great wit when he complained of his relations' tendency to breathe fire across the breakfast table. Still, their company was not quite of the same calibre as Poggs'. He began to drop by to call on Poggs, first to entice him out to dine, later whenever the whim struck him. Soon enough he found that Poggs had no objection to Rollo visiting often enough that he might as well have never moved out. Certainly, the advantages of having his own place to sleep and dress were more than worth the slight inconvenience of having to travel to and fro, but whenever he bounded up the stairs to Poggs' familiar rooms and found himself greeted by a smile, he felt himself more at home than he ever had at Threlfall.

"Hullo, Rollo." Poggs turned away from his desk, dropping an envelope on it with great emphasis. Midsomer was the name on the frank, though Rollo was not certain Poggs knew he could read it from here. "You are very welcome, my dear. I had just received a letter from a thoroughly insufferable colleague, and I had infinitely rather spend time with you than think about him just yet. What have you been about?"

Rollo was not, perhaps, a notably incisive thinker, but what he did have was an ability to assess a situation and his own opinions on it, come to a swift decision, and act upon it without the hindrance of self-doubt. This was one such occasion. He closed the door behind him, strode forward, and kissed Poggs.

It was not one of the world's great kisses. When one is accustomed to having a dragon's snout, it is a mere nothing to avoid bumping noses, but Rollo was still somewhat inexperienced with having lips. Still, Poggs looked pleasingly poleaxed afterward.

Rollo beamed at him. "There! I thought I should like that."

"Did you," said Poggs, a little weakly.

"Yes indeed, and I was quite right." He frowned. This response, on the other hand, was not precisely everything he had hoped. "Did you not like it? I beg your pardon if you didn't. Thought you might too."

"My dear fellow," said Poggs in an unreadable tone, which was not an answer at all. He had not stepped away, at least. He ran a hand through his hair with uncharacteristic abruptness. "My dear fellow. You did not, I suppose, happen to know that certain acts between men happen to be rather illegal in England? Not to mention decidedly looked down upon in all but a few highly select quarters."

Rollo relaxed. "Oh, well, if that's all! You wouldn't believe what's illegal in Threlfall, if you count illegal as against at least one aunt or uncle's strict dictates, which you ought to, as they certainly do. Quite accustomed to doing things somebody'd want to eat me for if they knew." He frowned. "But you didn't answer. Shan't try again if you don't want to. Nor if you don't want to break the law, but I must say it's an uncommon silly one."

There was a moment when Poggs regarded him through narrowed, assessing eyes, without the slightest sign of his usual ironical humour. Rollo waited, and tried not to fidget. 

Then Poggs huffed out a soft laugh, and Rollo knew that one way or another it would all be all right.

"It would be," he said, "a very poor repayment of my hospitality to tell anyone at all about any of this. Kissing me, or whether either of us had any interest in doing so -- and anything else that might fall under that heading, which I will tell you if it becomes pertinent, rest assured. I should take it very amiss indeed if you were to mention it to anyone besides me."

"Of course I won't peach!" Rollo cried in indignation. "What do you take me for? There's no call to go insulting me."

"No." Poggs laid a hand on Rollo's cheek, fingers curling behind his jaw. It was astonishing how warm it felt, and how soft his human skin was, calluses or not. "I suppose there's not."

He was the one who leaned in to kiss Rollo this time. The kiss lasted a good deal longer, and was, Rollo was delighted to discover, a good deal more interesting than the previous one as well. When they broke apart, Poggs drew even closer, and murmured into his ear, "As a matter of fact, my dear, I did very much want to."

An extremely diverting while later, Rollo lay sprawled atop Poggs, feeling pleasantly as if he had found a new horde to coil up on. He was tempted to shift to his true form to better appreciate the sensation, except that Poggs' hand was wound through his hair and idly stroking, and shifting seemed a very great effort at the moment — and in any case, it would have been an awful shame to squash Poggs.

"D'y'know," he told Poggs' chest, "think this is my favourite thing about the mortal world yet. Better than horseflesh. Better than waistcoats!"

Poggs laughed softly. "I'm gratified," he said, and pressed a light kiss to Rollo's hair. Really, Rollo hadn't properly appreciated the virtues of these soft mortal mouths until today. After a moment he added curiously, "Do dragons not...?"

"We do, of course, of a sort. That is, I haven't, but m'uncles have explained the matter to me." He shuddered slightly. "Very bitey, one gathers. Though perhaps that's just m'aunts. Ugh! Doesn't bear thinking of. Anyway, doesn't sound very appealing to me. Of course it's worth it for eggs, but I shouldn't think I'd want an egg just yet. Seems an awful lot of responsibility, and you know I'm not that clever. This was much more enjoyable."

"Humans do bite, on occasion," Poggs murmured. Rollo didn't need to see his face to picture the ironical expression upon it.

"Oh! That don't signify. Your teeth are so blunt." He nestled closer, tucking his flat human face into Poggs' neck. " _You_ can bite me any time you like."

He felt Poggs move under him, in what he realized after a moment was a silent laugh. Poggs laced their fingers together. "I shall remember that."

* * *

"Had an idea," Rollo announced. 

The words were directed towards the underside of Poggs' chin and the ceiling beyond, for Rollo was currently sprawled across the sopha with his boots hanging off the end and his head in Poggs' lap. Poggs, who had been reading a stack of dreadfully boring letters from fellow magicians, had given him an affectionately tolerant look and moved the letters out of the way.

"Mm?" said Poggs now, without looking away from the current letter. Rollo could just see the handwriting, which was spiky and scattered with a tempest of underlined words.

"You ought to take me as your familiar."

Poggs dropped the pages he was holding. They fluttered over Rollo's face and slithered to the floor.

"Pardon me, dear fellow," he said weakly, after a moment. "I believe I misheard you."

"Well, you ought. When you are a sorcerer you shall outrank all those foolish chaps. And you would look very well with a silver star on your coat."

"I thought you didn't want to be anyone's familiar."

"Not a _stranger's_. One hears the most dreadful rumours about mortal magicians, you know! But I think we get along very nicely, you and I. Don't you think so? Quite the nicest chap I ever met. And you're very clever too, which will be handy, since I am not. Besides, I should hate to imagine being bonded to someone who didn't appreciate a well-tied neckcloth, but I know with you I need never worry on that score."

"My dear," said Poggs. He was still sitting quite still, staring down at Rollo with a peculiar expression. "Did you just propose that I bond you as my familiar because of my cravats?"

" _And_ your tailoring," said Rollo, quite reasonably. "No, I am proposing to be your familiar because I like you a great deal. Do not act the cork-brain."

Poggs' expression began to look something closer to a smile. "Well. I like you as well, you scaly peacock."

"You do know the usual exchange? Of course you do, only it seems rather rum of me not to make sure."

"I do," Poggs assured him. "I cannot say I enjoy the notion of being devoured, but as it will happen after I die, I expect I won't mind."

"I will eat anyone who tries to harm you until then." He felt quite fierce even to think of it. "Or after. I will be the only one to eat your corpse."

"A sweeter proposition I have rarely heard," Poggs murmured, looking ironical.

**Author's Note:**

> Technically, the sugar boycott happened in 1791, at least in our world, whereas this fic is set some years earlier. However, I wanted to use it, so, uh... we're just handwaving that.
> 
> Thank you so much for the delightful prompt, valmora, and the chance to write these ridiculous dorks! I had TREMENDOUS fun with it, and I hope very much that you enjoy your present. Happy Yuletide!


End file.
